


(Mis)adventures in Protocol and Friendship

by The_Escaped



Series: The Best Starship is Friendship [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Finn is terrified of Leia, Friendship, Friendship Is The Best Ship, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, pre-Finn/Poe if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 16:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5750803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Escaped/pseuds/The_Escaped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn wakes up to a brave new world... he has to figure out what that means as he goes along.</p>
<p>Alternatively: the one where Finn is terrified of General Organa, and no one realizes until it's much too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Mis)adventures in Protocol and Friendship

FN-2187 came awake so slowly he almost didn’t realize he’d been asleep. He was on a medical cot, which made no sense. The First Order did not permit the waste of resources on Stormtroopers that were overcome by weakness strong enough to warrant extended time in the med bay. It didn’t matter if you made it to your barracks or not, you didn’t wake up on a medical cot.

It took a few moments of confusion before he remembered that he was not in a First Order base, and he was not FN-2187. He had a name now. He was Finn.

That was helpful in clearing up some of the fog in his mind, but it still left questions. How did he get to a med bay? Why did he feel bacta bandages across his torso?

There was a warmth on his hand. Finn could feel fingers and calluses. With difficulty, stiff muscles screaming in protest, he turned his head to the left. It took him a minute to recognize the figure slumped in the chair beside his bed. Poe’s face was slack in sleep, his mouth open. One of his hands was in his lap, and the other over Finn’s.

Finn had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, how he’d even gotten to this sick bay, but Poe was here. He was waiting for Finn. No one had ever done that before. Finn had no idea how to even respond to it. 

He was still staring at the figure when something metal and round rolled into the room. This time Finn managed to lift his head enough inches to make out BB-8’s form.

“Hey, little guy!”

Things were coming back to him slowly now, in patches, flashes of red and blue. Starkiller Base. Kylo Ren. Snow falling. Rey-

Rey.

His body made a whole spasm, making pain rocket through his limbs. Poe’s hand slipped off his. 

“BB-8, where’s Rey?” Finn hissed, voice cracking and hoarse, trying to get up through the pain. His _back_ … The droid chirped something in the language Finn still didn’t understand, rolling in a small circle.

“We have to find her, Kylo-” What if he’d already got her? How long had Finn been under? What if he was in-

No. If he was back with the First Order, they wouldn’t have put him in the med bay. Poe wouldn’t be next to him. Finn cast that awful thought out of his mind before it could take root. 

“Where is Rey?” he only hissed again. 

The droid whistled and rolled again, this time smacking solidly into Poe’s knee. The best pilot in the galaxy came awake with a jolt, starting out of his chair and falling onto the floor.

“Wha-” He looked around wildly and his eyes fell on Finn. The smile that broke out across his face took Finn’s breath away, even through his panic, “Finn! You’re awake! _You’re awake!_ ” He leapt to his feet, pulling Finn into a rough hug that made him groan involuntarily. Instantly the pilot sprang away.

“Right, right, sorry!” With more care, he hugged him again, this time mindful of Finn’s injuries. It went much more smoothly. “Are you in a lot of pain? Do you need anything? Water?”

“Rey,” he managed again. His voice couldn’t handle actual speaking level. It cracked again. Finn went back to a whisper, “Where is Rey?”

“She’s alright,” Poe said, and Finn felt his whole body go weak with relief, “She’s searching for Skywalker with Chewbacca. The Wookie almost had to pry her out of the room, she was so worried about you. We all were. BB-8 too.”

Finn felt a surge of disappointment but he pushed it down. Rey wasn’t waiting for him, but she had been. They both had been. And he had Poe here, vibrating with happiness. As it was, being alive was more than he had expected. Having Poe and BB-8, who was doing some kind of victory circuit around the bay, was more than he would have hoped.

“We did it,” he realized in a rasp. They’d beaten Kylo Ren. They’d stopped the First Order. 

Glassy-eyed and grinning, Poe clasped his hand over Finn’s again.

“We did it,” he confirmed.

 

Kylo Ren had carved a large swathe into Finn’s back. Recovery would be long, the medic told him, with a lot of physical therapy and tests.

When she was gone, Finn reached out curled a fist into Poe’s shirt.

“What is it?” he asked, and Finn didn’t know how to articulate the ball of dread in his stomach, the reasons that he felt Poe should understand already.

“How am I supposed to work?” he whispered, worried that the medic would overhear and realize this oversight, “What am I going to do like this?”

But Poe still didn’t understand; he could tell. How could he not understand? “What?”

“She said it would take months for me to be back to normal. How am I supposed to work like that?”

“You’re not supposed to,” Poe told him, a furrow making a spade between his eyebrows, “You’re supposed to rest. I don’t think you understand how badly you were hurt.”

But Finn shook his head. None of that mattered. He couldn’t even believe he’d made it this far, unless Poe and Rey’s status had protected him while he was unconscious. Probably. Poe was the best pilot in the galaxy, he’d said, and from how everybody had been acting Rey was going to be a _Jedi_. Finn couldn’t imagine anyone telling two people that important no to anything- certainly no one in the First Order had ever told Kylo Ren no to anything he demanded- even the care of a useless body taking up space and resources. And Poe and Rey were kind enough to protect him too. Their demanding it was something he could see very easily.

Only he was awake now, and months of recovery and physical therapy- he couldn’t afford that kind of time. He needed to pull his weight. He needed to be valuable. He needed to prove it to them all, or…

Or, he didn’t know. He definitely didn’t want to find out.

“I need an assignment,” Finn said instead of all that, which wouldn’t come out right anyway.

BB-8 beeped a long string of binary at him, rolling as close to the bed as he could so his dome brushed Finn’s fingers. Finn still couldn’t understand the words, but he thought it sounded sympathetic. That made sense. A droid would understand better, he supposed, the worry that came when you knew you were expendable.

A look that Finn couldn’t quite identify flitted across Poe’s face. He looked like he wanted to hug Finn again, but patted him on the shoulder instead.

“Your only assignment right now is to get better, alright?” he told Finn, still wearing the look- Finn hoped it wasn’t pity- and then moved on to talking about how the mission had ended. 

 

Finn’s only assignment wasn’t to get better. He didn’t let it be. As soon as Poe had left to go practice with his team, Finn called the medic back into the room and begged her to perform whatever tests she needed to run to prove his head hadn’t been affected by the coma. When they were finished, he convinced her into giving him paperwork to do for the med bay. When Poe came back to see Finn with a lap full of datapads, his face turned to a mixture of exasperation and amusement.

“You win, I see,” he told Finn, plopping into the seat.

Poe kept visiting him, even though Finn was awake now. It was the bright spot of Finn’s day, whenever he came. Poe fussed over him in a good-natured way that made Finn much less anxious than the medics’ questions, making sure the support he had to sit up was adjusted comfortably, teasing him about the paperwork. He dragged the rest of his crew in to visit at some point or another as well, one at a time so as not to overwhelm him, a thoughtful gesture that Finn hadn’t expected any more than the rest of them. Many of Poe’s friends were just as kind as he was; some even came back on their own time to finish a conversation or a game of sabacc.

Some didn’t trust Finn, despite their flat smiles. Finn didn’t blame them. He wasn’t as bothered by it as he’d thought he’d be, not with Poe and paperwork to keep him occupied.

When Poe found out he’d lived most of his life on ration bars and not much else- “They’ve got all the nutrients your body needs, Poe.” “They’re completely tasteless!”- Poe took such personal offense that he began bringing Finn food to try for the first time. Some was from the cantina, some, Jessika Pava told him when Poe wasn’t in the room, the man had cooked himself. All of it was delicious.

Through Poe, and the others that began to file in in the pilot’s wake, Finn began to piece together information about the Resistance. They were lively, and loud, and nearly always smiling. Finn had to make sure he was making the same upward movement with his lips sometimes- a motion that felt as new and alien as the base- or Poe worried.

A week after Finn woke up, they were able to send a holo to Rey and the crew of the Falcon. Finn could see his own shaky relief to see her well reflected on her face as well.

“You coming back for us?” Finn asked her, trying to tease her like Poe did him.

Rey looked shocked at the question. Maybe there was more to teasing than Finn had thought. Or maybe the idea of having people to come back to was as odd for her as it was for him. “Of course. You came back for me. I’ll always come back for you.”

Finn had the best friends in the world.

Then she turned to Poe, “Take care of him,” she said, voice going sterner than Finn had ever heard it, closer to the fierceness that she’d had when she’d first met him. It was only then that he realized his two best friends- his two only friends- didn’t know each other as well as he did them, and the interactions they’d had were all while he was unconscious. It was a disconcerting thought, one he put out of his head almost immediately.

“Of course I will,” Poe replied, and kept his promise.

Finn was ridiculously grateful for Poe’s visits, and was very much determined to make sure Poe didn’t know just how much it meant to him.

No matter how long he stayed, Finn made sure to finish his work before he went to sleep. He needed to prove that they hadn’t wasted their time and their resources on him or they wouldn’t give him any of either anymore.

It was odd, which of those thoughts was the most unbearable. Not something that Finn would have expected before he’d kidnapped Poe from the Order. To keep from thinking about it too hard, Finn buried himself in his work.

Poe began to go on missions again a few days after the message with Rey. He still came whenever he could. Poe came back after every mission, still in his uniform and with the worst cases of helmet hair Finn had ever seen in his life. Poe kept coming back and kept coming back. Finn wished Rey was there to meet him properly. She needed more people who came back in her life.

He kept busy. He did the physical therapy. He showed them that he could earn his keep. He was just starting to think that he could really do this when the news came.

“The general was asking about you,” Smina, one of the medics, said when she came in to collect the datapads he’d been working on.

Finn froze. General Organa hadn’t come in to visit him once since he’d woken up, though Poe had mentioned she’d dropped by a few times while he’d been out of it. He’d hoped she’d forgotten about him. Apparently that wasn’t the case.

“What did you tell her?” The medic looked up, confused. Abruptly, Finn realized that wasn’t the right question to ask, even if he cared about the answer more, “What did she want to know?”

“How you’ve been holding up. She wanted to see you, when you feel up to it.”

Finn’s mouth went dry. What had he done wrong? Why was he in trouble?

What kind of punishment was she going to give him?

“I can go now,” he decided, and tried to push himself out of bed. Pain roared up his spine, into his arms and legs. The medic pushed him back onto the bed.

“You’re not up to that yet. That will take a few more weeks at the least.”

“But-” Finn couldn’t even process what she was saying. His heart had begun hammering against his ribs. He couldn’t find space in his lungs to breathe, “But she said I needed to report to her.”

“Not like this you won’t,” Smina patted his arm, balanced the armful of datapads more carefully on her second set of limbs, and walked out, and Finn still couldn’t breathe.

Finn had absolutely no idea how long it was until anyone else came into his room in the med bay.

“Hey, Finn, Poe might be joining you for a bit after the stunts he pulled tod…Finn? Should you be standing without the physical therapy medic?”

Finn tried to pull his lips upwards into a smile. He was shaking, but he couldn’t tell if that was from pain or fear, “I’m fine,” he said, and it was mostly not a lie. The shriek of pain in the back of his head had mostly turned into a dull roar by now. That was fine, right?

Jessika didn’t look like she was buying it. In fact, she looked worried.

“Finn, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, the lie much worse this time. She took a step backwards to get a medic and Finn felt a spike of panic course through him, 

“Wait! Please! General Organa said she wanted me to report to her.”

“Does she know how hard this is for you?” Jessika wanted to know.

That wasn’t important. Why was everyone acting like it was important? If he was back in the First Order, no one would be asking questions like that. They would want to know why FN-2187 was keeping Captain Phasma waiting.

“I’m fine. Is she still meeting with anyone?”

Jessika shook her head, “Our debrief just ended. She said it was the last of the night.”

“Please, just- just can you show me how to get to her office? Please, Jessika,” he added, when she still looked uncertain, “She asked me to report to her. It’s important.”

Jessika sighed. Came over and fit her shoulders under his arm, so she was supporting part of his weight.

“If it’s this important to you. But if it’s too much, let me know.”

“Thank you,” he says, trying to make sure his voice isn’t strained. The First Order taught him how to control pain, how to work around it. Pain was weakness. Finn wasn’t weak. He wasn’t allowed to be weak with the First Order, and certainly not here.

He kept not letting himself be weak the whole Jessika helped him sneak out of the med bay and across the base, and by the time Jessika stopped his vision is a little grey in the corners, but for the most part he was alright. He can do this. He has to do this.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” she asked, feeling his forehead.

“I’m fine,” he repeated, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” she said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

 

General Organa opened the door herself when he knocked. He hadn’t been expecting that. From the surprise on her face, she hadn’t been expecting him either.

“Finn.”

Finn saluted.

“General. You asked me to report to you.”

There was a tightening around her eyes, “I asked medical if you would be up to speaking with me,” she corrected, but stood aside to let him enter.

There weren’t any aides in her office. From what Finn could see, she had the map that led to Skywalker up. Finn’s head was spinning too hard to take in more of the room, but he thought she might have charted Rey’s route on it in a neon green line. Maybe if his vision stopped smearing, he could get a better look at it, after General Organa finished with him.

General Organa. General Organa was watching him, waiting for something. And Finn didn’t know how different the Resistance was from the First Order, didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

In the end, he reverted back to First Order rules. They were harsh rules, but they were well defined, with clear results. He knew how to follow them, had been good at them. Until he wasn’t. Ignoring the way his skin pulled as he stood at-attention, and the pain that sparked like fire in his veins at the movement, he faced General Organa.

“How can I serve you, general?”

“I fear I owe you an apology,” she said, and that is so unlike anything Finn expected that only years of training keep him in position and not gaping at her, “I had meant to visit you after you woke up, but a string of attacks kept me too busy until now.”

Finn resisted the urge to shuffle his feet like a child. General Organa wasn’t as strict as Captain Phasma apparently, but she was still very formal. It wouldn’t be appreciated, “Poe mentioned them,” he admitted.

The instant he did Finn realized that might have been confidential information, but General Organa only gave a smile. It softened her face, “How have you been holding up?”

“Well, general. Medic Smina has been giving me datapads to work on.”

She nodded, “I’ve seen them. You’ve done good work. We need more people willing to do paperwork around here.”

Finn struggled to keep his relief from showing. She knew he wasn’t slacking off. She knew he was earning his keep, “I’m happy to help any way I can.”

She looked him over appraisingly. There were two of her. Finn wished his vision would clear enough that he could make out the expression on either of her faces.

“I actually meant to speak to you more about something I discovered recently, while I was speaking to Rey and Chewbacca.”

Finn thought she had been speaking to the Jedi. Poe had taken the holo they’d been using to speak with Rey to the general and come back at a run like the First Order was on his heels, wailing that General Organa was going to put his holo through a wall after she finished screaming at Luke Skywalker. That was how Finn had learned they were siblings.

The general sounded somber. Finn felt a sliver of foreboding through the all-around awfulness that was his body.

“G-general?”

“Chewie tells me that you exaggerated your ability to disable the shields on Starkiller. He said you were in fact stationed in the…sanitation division?”

The bottom dropped out of Finn’s stomach. She knew he’d lied to her. He’d endangered the whole mission- the whole resistance-

She was going to kill him.

The same oxygen-starved lightheadedness Finn had felt in the med bay returned. Swallowing down bile, he locked his hands behind his back to keep them from shaking. Weakness was not permitted. He was a soldier in front of a superior officer.

“I accept whatever punishment you deem acceptable,” he forced out, trying to keep his eyes on the map, on the neon green line that marked Rey’s travel. Rey was away from the First Order. She was away from their reeducation, from Kylo Ren and his tendency to take a lightsaber- burning, cutting, pain- to anything that displeased him. She was safe. Anything the general did to Finn, it was worth knowing that they couldn’t touch her.

Black spots blotted out the line, edges of the map, parts of the general’s face(s). The pain wasn’t a dull roar anymore, it was a sharp, painful scream ripping across his whole body. Finn didn’t think his arms behind his back was helping to stop him shaking. He could feel his whole body practically vibrating, a distant sensation completely unattached to his consciousness and the pain that was eating away at that. It was making it hard to remember what he was supposed to be doing. What were his commands?

“Finn-” the general- Captain Phasma?- began. He could barely hear her over the sound of static in his ears.

“I apologize,” he said in a tinny, distant voice just as his knees buckled and the blackness billowing in his vision swallowed him whole.

 

Finn came awake with a gasp. He was in the med bay again, his whole body ached, and he desperately wanted Poe or Rey there to explain why he felt so bad.

BB-8 beeped at him from the corner of his vision. Smooth metal brushed against his finger. A metal hand came out, like he was trying to scan Finn.

“I’ll handle it from here, little droid.”

Finn’s vision went grey with sudden panic. He whipped around. Pain exploded out of his back. When the world stopped spinning, General Organa was sitting in the seat Poe took next to his head. Memory burst through Finn with terrible clarity.

Finn whimpered.

He didn’t see BB-8 leave. General Organa filled his vision. For a moment Captain Phasma overlay her, staring at FN-2187 through the trooper visor, wanting to know why he failed to meet First Order requirements. Just as she had before she’d assigned him to reeducation.

“General- I- I’m so sorry-”

He jerked forward and almost blacked out. A hand was on his shoulder, pressing down.

“Easy,” she said, but Finn couldn’t obey, he needed to prove to her that he could be a proper soldier, he needed to prove their efforts weren’t wasted on him, he needed- he couldn’t _breathe_

“Trooper, _enough!_ ” her voice had gone hard and cold. Suddenly he found himself back on the bed, the general scowling down at him, “Lay down, _now!_ ”

Gasping, trying unsuccessfully to fill his lungs with air, Finn obeyed only because he didn’t have the strength to do anything else. Small, animal noises were clawing their way out of him. General Organa’s lips were a thin white line of disapproval.

“The medics tell me you won’t be cleared for as much activity as you’ve done tonight for _weeks_. What were you thinking, pushing yourself so far with an injury like that? You could have crippled yourself with this kind of a stunt. As it is, you’ve probably destroyed the hard work your physical therapist has done.”

FN-21 - Finn- didn’t know what to say. He’d lied to the Resistance to go after Rey. He’d broken protocol in the most mortifying way possible. There was no way to save himself from this. He could see from the general’s face that whatever her plans were they went far past reeducation. He desperately wished he still had his helmet, so he could have something to hide his face from her piercing eyes.

“I-I-” Something broke inside his chest, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it wrong. I can- I can-”

_I can do better_. The lie tasted sour in his mouth and he couldn’t make the rest of it come out. He’d already tried the best he could. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong, what part had pushed him over the edge past unacceptable, but he could feel all the worry and panic he’d staved off since waking in the base unraveling in the face of it.

“Please.”

It took Finn a long moment to realize that the word had come from his mouth, that he was speaking, but when he did he couldn’t stop. He was already in too much trouble to get out of, he couldn’t very well make it worse. He was distantly aware that he was crying, but he couldn't stop; he needed to make ask-

“Please, please get Poe before you do it.”

“What are you talking about-”

“Finn!”

There was a crash and then Poe obscured half his vision. A bacta pad covered a swathe of his face, he had dried blood in his hair. He had a hand on the side of Finn’s face. Relief swelled in Finn’s throat.

“What the hell is going on here?” Poe turned to look at General Organa but Finn grabbed his arm with both hands.

“Please stay,” he begged, “Please, Poe, don’t leave me here, I don’t want to be alone when it happens please stay please-”

“Trooper. Finn.”

Finn flinched. General Organa’s voice had lost its sharpness, or as much as it probably could. Now it was mostly gentle, if still _very_ unhappy, and _Finn didn’t know what that meant._

“Finn, tell me what you’re thinking right now,” she said.

“I…you’re…” he swallowed again, mouth dry. He could feel tear tracks on his face, “I betrayed the Resistance. You’re terminating me.”

“ _What?_ ” breathed Poe, who was suddenly gripping Finn’s hand just as tightly as Finn was gripping his.

“I lied to you to get to Starkiller so I could find Rey. I’m still not recovered. I’m taking up space and resources that could be used on better soldiers,” he listed off. Poe opened his mouth but General Organa put a hand on the pilot’s shoulder and shook her head, “I can’t be trusted, I broke protocol, I’m not doing enough work, I’m…” he didn’t know what else he was doing wrong, but he was sure there was more.

General Organa stood gracefully, and Finn thought she was going to call the medics to do it then. He gripped Poe’s hand with all his strength. Poe was staring at him with his mouth agape, horrified. Maybe he hadn’t known how much trouble Finn was in.

A hissing sound made him flinch again. General Organa reappeared in Finn’s line of vision, on his other side. In her hands was a bowl; she set it down on the corner of Finn’s bed and drew a cloth out of it.

“General,” began Poe, but she shushed him absently, wringing a clear liquid from the cloth.

Finn was shocked when the general of the Resistance began to wipe his forehead. “This whole debacle tonight,” she said with the same calmness, “this has been you following protocol.”

“I’ve been trying,” he said hoarsely. And he had tried, so, so hard.

“Your reasoning is flawed. You’ve been following the training you received from the First Order,” she put the cloth back into the bowl and looked into his eyes again, “We are not the First Order. Our priorities are different.”

…Oh.

“This is my fault, and I owe you a bigger apology than I previously thought. I’d meant to explain something of this sort to you when you first woke up. The recent fighting distracted me, to your detriment,” She was still speaking with the same clinical calmness. Her eyes held him in place, “We do not view one another as a culmination of resources that must be spent in the most efficient way. We do not view each other in terms of a competition of assets, and we do not consider the injured a waste of resources, and we never, _never, terminate_ ,” the word made her grimace, “our own men or innocents, particularly not for something as innocuous as a breech in protocol. Do I make myself clear?”

Finn nodded.

“Lying to reach Rey on Starkiller: that behavior will _never_ happen again. That being said, it’s not- not the worst rescue I’ve ever seen,” her voice was suddenly hoarse. General Organa blinked rapidly and looked back at the bowl, “Loyalty to Rey and loyalty to the Resistance aren’t mutually exclusive. You haven’t betrayed anyone.”

“I can do that, general,” Poe spoke up, pointing to the bowl with his chin the way Han had. Finn had to force each finger off his wrist; he’d held on so tightly that his fingers had locked up like that.

“I fear I make you uncomfortable,” General Organa said briskly, once she had handed the bowl over to Poe, “We will have to work on that as well. But I daresay you’ve been through enough for today. For now, your mission is to recover. If working makes you feel better, you can fill out datapads as long as you are cleared for by the medics. I’ll be in to speak with you in a few days.”

She hesitated, looking at Poe, “I trust you’ll take care of him,” and then she was gone.

Finn tried to breathe, tried to make sense of what had just happened. He wasn’t getting terminated. They weren’t the First Order.

A soft noise made him look around again.

Poe was crying. His lips were pressed tightly together to keep the noise in, his face had gone red and wet and his shoulders were shaking. BB-8 whirred at the pilot, rolling into his leg, but tears kept racing down his face.

“Poe? Poe, what’s wrong?”

The pilot wiped a hand over his eyes clumsily.

“All this time, and you thought we would do something like that?”

Finn’s stomach swooped. He hadn’t thought of what Poe would think of all this. Seeing Poe upset was nearly as bad as being upset himself.

“Poe, I didn’t mean…please don’t be mad.”

“ _Mad_ , how can you think-” he drew a ragged breath, “You don’t understand, all this time you’ve been scared of us doing _that_ to you and you never- Jessika thought something was wrong, but I didn’t think- and I’ve been right here and I couldn’t _help_ you!”

“You did help me!” Finn exclaimed, surprised, “No one’s helped me like you before!” Except for Rey. Finn had never had friends before Poe and Rey.

“I didn’t help you enough,” declared Poe. Pulling the chair closer, he sat down next to Finn with a note of finality, “That changes now.”

He made Finn tell him about the First Order. Everything. The hierarchy, where Finn fit into it, his education, where he ate and slept and what training had been like. He danced around questions about protocol and infraction punishment until Finn had realized what he was doing and told him about those too. Poe cried a few more times, to Finn’s distress.

“That’s enough,” he said finally, standing up, “For now, anyway. We’ll come back to it later, but…I can’t do anymore now,” he glanced at the BB-8, who had been making a slow circuit around Finn’s room as they talked, “Watch him for me?”

BB-8 kept close after Poe had left, letting out a stream of whistles and beeps that Finn didn’t even bother to understand. He didn’t need to understand to realize it was a scolding.

“You’re mad at me too, huh?”

BB-8 popped out his little arm with the flame. Finn wasn’t sure if this time it was a thumbs up or if he was getting flipped off by a droid that came up to his knee, but before he could ask he heard Poe’s soft voice speaking to one of the medics. Hadn’t he been leaving?

“You better not be trying to sit up,” the pilot told him when he stuck his head into the room. Finn lay back down and grinned apologetically, “That’s what I thought. Your medics are not happy with you. And Jessika wants to put you in a bacta tank just so we don’t have to worry about you anymore until you’re healed.”

That sounded like an even bigger waste of resources, Finn decided, but kept his mouth shut about it, “I’ll be good from now on.”

“I know,” Poe said, stepping into the room, arms full, “We’re gonna make sure of that.”

Finn eyed the bundle of blankets in the pilot’s arms, trailing over his shoulder and onto the ground behind him like a parody of Kylo Ren’s cloak. Poe follows his gaze.

“Oh, this? Doesn’t sound like you ever had a sleepover, so you’re getting your first one now. Snaps loaned me some of his sweets, so we have those-”

“What are you doing?” Finn asked as Poe dragged the chairs away and began to lay the blankets on the floor.

“I figured it out. We just spent all this time talking about the First Order.”

“…Yes…”

Poe grinned at him. His eyes were still rimmed with red from tears, and the smile was a little strained, but there was a brightness to it. Poe wasn’t capable of being helpless. He always found a way to help.

“Now it’s your turn. You’re going to ask me about the Resistance. And we’ll find out what you think it’ll be like here, and then I can tell you how it is, and you’ll know what to expect.”

Finn’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

Poe’s smile was unsure. Hopeful. No one had ever looked at Finn like that before.

“Will that help?”

“Yeah,” Without having to think about it, the corners of Finn’s mouth turned up, “Yeah, that’ll help a lot.”

So Poe sat on the corner of the bed, and they both talked and swapped questions, with BB-8 rolling between them, until Finn’s panic had dissipated like fog before the sun. Finn fell asleep in the early morning to the sound of Poe settling in and the feel of BB-8’s dome under his fingertips.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had an idea knocking around my head since I saw the movie that Finn would be terrified of Leia because as a General she would remind him of Captain Phasma and the other First Order superiors he was fleeing from when he met Rey.
> 
> Sorry if anything is inaccurate: I'm a newborn babe in the fandom. Drop me a message and I'll fix it. I'm very excited to be here on AO3 with you all!


End file.
